Microsoft Will Let You Resell Xbox One Games — But Publishers May Not

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

As a publisher of games for its Xbox One hardware, Microsoft will allow players to trade in their games at “participating retailers” without anyone having to pay an extra fee, it said Thursday in a statement released online.

However, it can’t say the same for the other publishers that will create Xbox One games. They, Microsoft says, have the right to “opt out” entirely of letting players sell games, or to negotiate separate terms with retail stores like GameStop that do involve the payments of “transfer fees.”

Since used games can only be sold at “participating retailers,” this necessarily excludes private sales: You can’t sell a game to your next-door neighbor, or on eBay. Only by using a certain retail store as a middleman will you be able to trade in your games.

Microsoft says that it is possible to give your games to your friends, but puts serious restrictions on this practice: You can only give a game to someone who has been on your Xbox Live friends list for 30 days, and each copy of a game can only exchange hands once. No passing a single game around a group of people or getting it back later: Each transfer is permanent and exhausts the possibility of further transfer.

“Loaning or renting” games, Microsoft says, won’t be possible when Xbox One launches, although it might down the line.

In a separate informational post, Microsoft said that the Xbox One would indeed need to connect to the internet once every 24 hours to “verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend.”

If the system is unable to connect, Microsoft said, it would not be able to play any games at all, even single-player ones, although it could still watch live television and disc-based movies.

“In areas where an Ethernet connection is not available, you can connect using mobile broadband,” Microsoft said.

These clear statements on the Xbox One’s restrictions on used games come weeks after a confusing debut for the new console, at which Microsoft executives gave different answers to different publications that often directly contradicted each other.